Magic Bites

"Magic Bites" is a character-driven paranormal mystery set in an Atlanta where waves or pulses of magic take over the city, rendering technology null and void. Not even the buildings are safe, unless they're heavily protected with wards and spells.

Andrews' vision of Atlanta is dark and dangerous. The city has an underworld run by a powerful group of necromancers known as The People who control vampires and are frequently challenged by The Pack, the collective of shapeshifters.

The main character is Kate Daniels, a mercenary, who gets dragged into an investigation when her mentor is brutally killed. She's signed on as an adjunct investigator for the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid, the official law-enforcement agency of humans who wield magic, in order to find her mentor's killer. Naturally, the scope of the investigation widens drastically as Kate realizes this wasn't an isolated killing.

It's a well-paced, well thought-out story. There aren't really any shocking twists, but the plot progresses logically and doesn't leave the reader feeling cheated at the resolution. While it does appear to be the beginning of a series, "Magic Bites" is a good stand-alone novel. The ending isn't a cliff-hanger, yet it still makes a person want to find out more.

What makes it such a good read is characters that could have been horribly flat and cliched, and instead, even when driven by instinct, seem more complex. They are given opportunity not only to react and interact, but make decisions and have a full impact on the story. No one in the book is just there to be scenery or window-dressing, every role has a purpose and it drives the book forward. For each character class, Andrews reveals, in the course of reading, that there is a whole range of behavior, from deranged deviants to good, law-abiding citizens and everything in between. Well, except for the vampires. Admittedly, at times, the gorgeous seductive powerful vampire gets more than just a little boring. You will not find those sorts of vampires here. These vampires are a mindless hive that are controlled by necromancers. Left to their own devices, vampires will simply feed until something kills them.

The shapeshifters and vampires all go through physiological changes in relation to their species, which Andrews explains admirably without going into so much detail it ruins the reader's ability to get immersed in the story. All of the explanations are handled beautifully and seamlessly in the text in a very smooth, believable manner. There is no breaking of the fourth wall in this book to spoil the mood.

A word to the wise, however, this book gets gory. There are descriptions of corpses that can get a bit graphic at times. Andrews doesn't gloss over the nasty details and in the end, it seems as if there's been good forensic research done on various forms of bodily trauma. The fighting all has consequences and not all of them fall into the happy "and everything was resolved, the good guys won, and they all lived happily ever after" variety. It's just really not that kind of book.

However, fans of CSI, paranormal mysteries, the X-files, and any other of a host of such subgenre offerings should be pleased with this novel.